Analysis of moisture conditions in the lowland areas using high resolution spectral data from the Sentinel-2 satellite and the GIS tools

Abstract

Research concerning agricultural drought issue mainly focuses on the methods based on long-term atmospheric data, temperature, precipitation and evaporation measurements. On the other hand, the scientific bibliography shows the possibilities of using spectral data for description the state of plants. The general availability and increasing resolution of the spectral and temporal data create a chance for monitoring and forecasting deficiencies of soil moisture based on spectral images. Paper presents the results of analysis of the moisture conditions in soil-plant environment in the lowland catchment area using the spectral data obtained from the Sentinel-2 European Space Agency satellite for period February-November 2016. These spectral data were used for the calculation the Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI) which provided information about moisture conditions in the soil-plant environment. Then, the values of NDVI index were compared with the data obtained from the field investigations. The analyses have showed the spatial and temporal variability of moisture conditions in the soil-plant environment determined on the background of the spectral indicators and the existence of some dependences between climatic and spectral indicators characterizing soil-plant environment.